Picture Perfect Blog

Ever since television sets became affordable enough for most people to own more than one, family viewing of big live events has been increasingly rare. Many families now have as many TVs as there are viewers, with people choosing to watch what they desire, alone, rather than wrestling over the remote.

Fifty years ago, to great fanfare, the BBC launched its second channel, BBC2 — except, it didn’t. Just as the channel was due to go to air, there was a power cut and a nation of eager British viewers turned over to a blank screen. Thanks to secondary power supplies in another BBC building, a newsreader briefly explained what was happening to a baffled audience before postponing the launch until the following evening. Pondering broadcasting disasters like this got Picture Perfect thinking. What would be the TV worst-case scenario? When would the worst possible moment be for your antenna installation or digital TV to fail? After all, digital television with bad reception doesn’t go fuzzy. It goes blank.

Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire; when it comes to ground-breaking TV drama, the USA has been enjoying a golden age of classic TV. Funded by huge advertising revenues and popular subscription channels such as HBO, the US TV industry has deep pockets and generations of TV-production experience. It also has the advantage of Hollywood and brilliant actors, production facilities and scriptwriters on their doorstep. The chances are, if you’re looking at setting up a new home cinema system, keen to get access to subscription TV channels, or upgrading your antenna installation, you’ve been prompted to do so by the chance to catch the US show everyone has been talking about. Here are our current favourites, still widely available online and by subscription.

Take a look at overnight TV ratings and you’d be forgiven for thinking Australia was a nation of newshounds. Most evenings, the TV programmes Aussies sit down to watch are the evening news updates. Some would argue that this simply reflects Australia’s outdoor lifestyle. People watch less TV here and if they do watch, it tends to be for information rather than entertainment. In the 1960s and 1970s, Australian TV production barely existed, with the home-grown TV mainly being musical entertainment and current affairs. In fact, at its worst, 97% of all drama shows on Australian TV were made overseas, mostly in America. Since then, the TV industry has grown hugely. At its peak a few years ago, around half of screened content was made in Australia. With the growth in multi-channel TV since the launch of digital broadcasting, this has fallen and currently around a third of TV programming…

Until the mid 1970s, the overwhelming majority of TV shows enjoyed in Australian homes were imported, particularly from the USA. British TV has always had a slice of the ratings pie in Australia, however, so if you’re planning a new antenna installation or home cinema to make the most of new TV viewing options, here are the British shows to look out for.

Experimental TV in Brisbane first aired in 1934 but it wasn’t until spring 1956—to coincide with the Melbourne Olympics—that Australia was welcomed into the family of mass TV broadcasting. Now nearing its diamond anniversary, it’s likely that most of your Grandmas remember their first TV and their earliest viewing experiences vividly. They might even remember watching the first broadcast of an interview with the nation’s favourite grandma, Dame Edna Everage, on HSV-7’s first day of broadcasting.

Removing and replacing antennas for a living, our TV technicians hate to see these useful bits of kit go off to landfills, scrap yards or recycling centres. They might be no good for your TV reception, but old antennas are built to last and there’s a fair chance they could have a whole new life somewhere else. So, what can be done with a rusty pile of metal formerly attached to a roof? First, check with Freecycle, likely local charities and any amateur radio enthusiasts or clubs nearby. They might well want your old antenna just as it is to reuse or slightly modify for ham radio. Failing that, it’s time to get creative and find an interesting use for your old TV aerial.

“Sorry to bother you, I just wondered if you could help me with something?” The apologetic tone at the end of the phone is a shame because calls like this are often the highlight of our working day. We put our number on our vans and online to encourage people to call up and ask us for help. After all, we are the antenna installation experts and if you have a problem with your TV set-up, we’re pretty sure Picture Perfect can help.

Beautiful Brisbane. Our corner of Queensland is home to more than two million Australians and is a truly global city. Proud hosts of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, 1988 World Expo and the last ever Goodwill Games, Brisbane has shown itself to be a world-class city with a friendly disposition and hard-working heart. Picture Perfect has been working on TV antenna installation in the cultural and economic centre of Queensland for nearly two decades. Working with householders the length of the Sunshine Coast, during our 20 years in business we have seen Brisbane bloom. The population here has grown by more than 2% every year since 1990. More people settling here means more work for us, and Brisbane is a great place to be in business.

Analogue TV is now history in Australia, with nationwide digital switchover completed just before Christmas 2013. If you’re watching TV now, you have at least one reasonable digital TV setup but if your picture is less than perfect, you are missing out on channels, or you have more than one TV in the house, you might well be considering upgrading other TVs to digital.